North Carolina transfer Caleb Love commits to Arizona

Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
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Caleb Love is now headed to Arizona.

The North Carolina transfer tweeted, less than a month after decommitting from Michigan, that he will play next season with the Wildcats.

“Caleb is a tremendously talented guard who has significant experience playing college basketball at a high level,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said in a statement. “We look forward to helping Caleb grow his game at Arizona. And as we near the completion of the roster for the upcoming season, we feel great about how everything has come together. Now it’s time for the real work to start.”

A 6-foot-4 guard, Love averaged 14.6 points and 3.3 assists in three seasons at North Carolina. He averaged 17.6 points in seven NCAA Tournament games, helping lead the Tar Heels to the 2022 national championship game.

Love entered the transfer portal after leading North Carolina with 73 3-pointers as a junior and initially committed to Michigan. He decommitted from the Wolverines earlier this month, reportedly due to an admissions issue involving academic credits.

Love narrowed his transfer targets to three schools before choosing to play at Arizona over Gonzaga and Texas.

Love will likely start on a team that will have dynamic perimeter players, including Pelle Larsson, Kylan Boswell and Alabama transfer Jaden Bradley.

Clemson leading scorer Hall withdraws from NBA draft, returns to Tigers

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CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson leading scorer PJ Hall is returning to college after withdrawing from the NBA draft on Thursday.

The 6-foot-10 forward took part in the NBA combine and posted his decision to put off the pros on social media.

Hall led the Tigers with 15.3 points per game this past season. He also led the Tigers with 37 blocks, along with 5.7 rebounds. Hall helped Clemson finish third in the Atlantic Coast Conference while posting a program-record 14 league wins.

Clemson coach Brad Brownell said Hall gained experience from going through the NBA’s combine that will help the team next season. “I’m counting on him and others to help lead a very talented group,” he said.

Hall was named to the all-ACC third team last season as the Tigers went 23-10.

Duke’s Krzyzewski, Dawkins make collegiate hall along with Carolina’s Hansbrough

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Retired Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and one of his best players in Johnny Dawkins are among the newest members at the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

The other three inductees announced on social media Tuesday were former North Carolina star Tyler Hansbrough, longtime Division II coach Herb Magee and late high school scout Tom Konchalski.

The group will be enshrined Aug. 30 in Chicago. Krzyzewski and Magee are also members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Krzyzewski retired after the 2021-22 season with a record 1,202 victories and five national championships. He coached 47 seasons, the first five at Army.

Dawkins was one of Coach K’s first star players, averaging 19 points over four seasons before getting drafted in the first round by the San Antonio Spurs in 1986. He was the school’s career scoring leader for 20 years before JJ Reddick surpassed him in 2006.

Dawkins was a sophomore when the Blue Devils began a stretch of 35 NCAA Tournament appearances in 36 seasons. They reached the title game his senior year, losing to Louisville 72-69.

Hansbrough played with the Tar Heels from 2006 through 2009 and helped North Carolina to the 2009 national title. He averaged 20.2 points and 8.6 rebounds over his four seasons.

Magee had a record of 1,144-450 in 54 seasons at a school known as Philadelphia Textile for most of his tenure, which started in 1968.

Konchalski, who died in 2021, spent his career watching high school players and put out a newsletter, “High School Basketball Illustrated,” that was widely read by college coaches.

Clemson adds Syracuse’s Joseph Girard III, 3 others

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CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson added four transfers including high-scoring, ex-Syracuse player Joseph Girard III to its roster for next season.

The school announced that Girard, former North Carolina State forward Jack Clark, ex-Air Force guard Jake Heidbreder and former UNC Greensboro forward Bas Leyte all signed with the Tigers for next season.

Girard, a 6-foot-1 guard who played four seasons for the Orange, was sixth in overall scoring in the Atlantic Coast Conference at 16.4 points a game. His joining gives Clemson the two top returning scorers in league play in Girard and returning forward PJ Hall.

Clark, at 6-foot-8, made 17 starts for the Wolfpack last season, averaging nine points and 6.9 rebounds. Clark also played three seasons with La Salle.

Heidbreder is a 6-5 guard who was picked for the all-Mountain West third team last season after averaging 15.1 points a game.

Leyte is a 6-10 forward who started 49 games the past two seasons in his four years with the Spartans. He averaged 7.6 points and 4.3 rebounds last year.

The Tigers were 23-11 last year and finished third in the ACC, winning a school-record 14 league games.

South Carolina-Notre Dame to open women’s basketball season in Paris

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina and Notre Dame will open the next women’s college basketball season in Paris, the schools announced.

The Nov. 6 matchup will mark the first time an NCAA regular-season game has been played in the French capital.

Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said she didn’t hesitate when invited to take part. “Playing Notre Dame in Paris is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for our student-athletes,” she said.

South Carolina reached its third straight Final Four this past season and was undefeated until losing to Iowa 77-73 in the national semifinals.

Notre Dame advanced to the Sweet 16, where it lost to Maryland 76-59.

Fighting Irish coach Niele Ivey said the women’s college game is on the rise and “having this exposure will help grow the game on an international level.”

Cavinder twins say they’re leaving Miami after 1 season

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CORAL GABLES, Fla. — For Haley and Hanna Cavinder, the Elite Eight apparently was enough and their time at Miami is over.

The Cavinder twins – two of the most prominent athletes in the name, image and likeness era of college athletics – announced Tuesday that they will not return to the Hurricanes next season, ending their Miami tenure after one year with the program.

The Cavinders – who are 22 and were listed as seniors on the Miami roster – both played four seasons in college, but they could have played next season, too, because of the NCAA ruling that restored a year of eligibility to all athletes who went through a pandemic-affected season.

They transferred from Fresno State to Miami in April 2022 with hopes of playing in the NCAA Tournament and probably exceeded even their own expectations by helping the Hurricanes fall just short of reaching the Final Four.

“We would like to thank our teammates and coaches for bringing us in as family and being part of a historic season,” the twins said in a statement. “With that being said, Hanna and I have decided to not take our fifth year and start a new chapter in our lives. The U will always be home and we are forever proud to be Hurricanes.”

Haley Cavinder ended this season with 2,065 career points, which was 19th-most among all active Division I players. She averaged 12.2 points per game this season, a team best for Miami – and her 65 makes from 3-point range was another team high, by a wide margin.

Hanna Cavinder averaged 3.8 points this season for Miami. The Hurricanes lost a regional final to eventual national champion LSU, ending the year with a 22-13 record.

The decision was a bit of a surprise, at least from the standpoint of one of the twins. Haley Cavinder said before the NCAA Tournament that she planned to return to the Hurricanes next season for what would have been her final year of collegiate eligibility. Hanna Cavinder said at that time she was leaning toward no longer playing after this season.

And that begged the question: Would one Cavinder twin play without the other? Barring a change of heart, their announcement Tuesday provided the answer.

“I love basketball,” Hanna Cavinder told The Associated Press last month when she discussed leaning toward not playing. “I ride or die basketball. I’ve given basketball so much of my life. And sometimes I’m like, ‘I just want to breathe.’ I really just want to breathe. I want to live. I don’t want to be on a plan. I don’t want to be on a schedule. But at the end of the day, I’m so competitive in life that I don’t know if I’m going to regret it or not.”

The twins have 4.5 million followers on TikTok, part of their enormous footprint in the social media space. When the NIL era started on July 1, 2021, and NCAA rules began allowing athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, the Cavinders were among the first stars: Boost Mobile signed them immediately, touting the deal with a giant advertisement in New York’s Times Square, and many other deals followed.

“What started as us playing basketball 16 years ago turned into something bigger than we could ever imagine,” the twins said Tuesday.

Their decision to come to Miami was scrutinized, and a probe by the NCAA led to coach Katie Meier missing the first three games of this season through a university-imposed suspension that was handed down in anticipation of sanctions surrounding how the twins and their family met with a Hurricanes booster before signing.

The NCAA probe never accused the Cavinders of wrongdoing. Miami eventually was placed on one year of probation after the school and the NCAA agreed that coaches arranged impermissible contact between the booster and the Cavinders.